Seven dudes pick Portland’s best cinnamon roll.

It wasn’t Willamette Week’s intention to limit our
taste-off of Portland’s best cinnamon rolls by gender. But by
happenstance, only dudes—seven of ’em—came down to the conference room
for a blind taste test of the nine rolls we’d sought out one cold Friday
morn. So we bro’d out, as bros are wont to do, eating big ol’ rolls of
puffy, sugar-sopped dough while (naturally) exchanging vulgar jokes and
braggadocio about sexual conquests.

A female staffer did
question that methodology afterward, positing that women perhaps prefer
gooier rolls than men. She was summarily ushered into the conference
room to taste from the wreckage, ultimately confirming the dudely
findings.

All rolls were
ordered from the counter as “two cinnamon rolls” within the same
two-hour window and served unheated and unlabeled. Consensus was
strong—ideas about the platonic ideal of cinnamon rolls are apparently
much more consistent than, say, pizza—so we’re pretty comfortable saying
that this is how Portland’s best cinnamon rolls stack up.

2. Baker & Spice

The rolls: Baker & Spice’s
version is called the Katie Bun and is more like a croissant than a
cinnamon roll. Tasters liked this tower of weightless dough with a light
dusting of powered sugar, though it’s not a substitute for a great
cinnamon roll.

Comments: “This is the possibly homosexual European cinnamon roll they fear in red states.”

4. Fat City

The rolls: Large and dense, these
came wrapped in tinfoil and felt like a baseball in the palm. The size
of the roll necessitates having to bake the outside until it’s pretty
dark, which divided tasters.

Comments: “This is what I’d expect from a small-town bakery.”

“The icing is very sugary. It’s kind of fried on top, too—it’s like a state-fair elephant ear.”

“Most elephant ears aren’t so large.”

5. Sugar Mamas

539 SW 13th Ave., 224-3323.

The rolls: We actually tried three varieties of cinnamon roll from Sugar Mamas, given our recent glowing review [“All In the Family,” WW,
Nov. 23, 2011]. All were in the middle of the pack. Mamas is more of a
restaurant than a bakery, and these rolls, which are soaked in sugary
sauce that pooled in the bottom of their containers, probably would have
fared far better fresh from the oven.

Comments: “It’s mushy. There’s no distinction between the frosting and the dough.”

“The one is very cinnamon-y—it tastes like Big Red gum—and the other, with bacon, is very smoky and has very little cinnamon.”